Yes, according to Animation magazine, the new cartoon It's Archie will see Riverdale's finest "encounter loopy capers involving mad scientists, aliens in the janitor's closet, pirates, lake monsters and more."

Though that certainly sounds a bit of a stretch, I can't call myself an Archie purist on any level to make that call. TR contributor Chris Cummins, however, is as hardcore an Archie-ologist as I've ever known to exist, so I've asked him to add his comments below.

As a hardcore Archie fan I can tell you flat out: there has never been a decent cartoon based on America's Typical Teenager. The famous 1960s toon (which gave us "Sugar Sugar") was plagued by stale animation and terrible voice work. The less said about "The New Archies" the better, and "Archie's Weird Mysteries" was ambitious but still kinda dull.

However, I like the art I have seen from this so far, even though I still don't know why it isn't just based on Bob Bolling's "Little Archie" work. My first impression is that by throwing monsters into the mix this could have a "Galaxy High School" vibe to it. Which would be awesome.

I'm not sure what rankles more: the need for cartoon versions of Archie to try and alter the style of art that has been consistently working for decades, or the constant need to add wacky elements to a series as though Archie can't be a draw of it's own.

If they wanna do something wacky, why not adapt the Jughead Time Traveller series from the 90's. That has all the right genre elements. For that matter, the "Life with Archie" series I've heard so much about would make for a great cartoon.

The only thing that bothers me is that this is EXACTLY the last idea they ran with when it came to using Archie in animation. Hell, "Archie's Weird Mysteries" still runs on some TV stations. It airs here in Denver on Qubo network.

No offense to anybody but I quit caring about archie roughly 40 years ago. New series? We'll never get it where we live anyway, and the animation style makes it look like every other Saturday morning/cartoon channel cartoon to begin with.

"Life With Archie" being on television would anger every parent group, religious group, and "TV is destroying our children!" group in the United States. They'd be especially sensitive to Archie being portrayed this way because there was a line of Christian Archie comics that the fundamentalist Christians STILL see as "the real Archie" all these years later.

@LYT@SumEllisOck I'm not going to judge it by content since most Archie Cartoons have been a bit meh in this department. It's just that I like the classic Archie art style better than this hyperstylized look.